


Scars of Ulysses

by Zaku



Category: Ace Combat
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 13:49:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21357253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaku/pseuds/Zaku
Summary: Erusea struggles to rebuild in the wake of the Continental War, plagued by insurgency, corruption, and prejudice.
Kudos: 5





	Scars of Ulysses

A lone aircraft with a broad wingspan soared high over a dense rainforest, gliding beneath a wispy layer of cirrus clouds. The sun reflected brightly against its bare metal skin, marked only with a matte serial number, roundel, and “Comonan Air Force” stenciled along its long nose.

Its twin radial engines loudly roared against either side of the bubble canopy. Noise abatement wasn’t much of a concern in the 1940’s vintage F-15 Reporter, and even the pilot’s modern helmet barely made a difference in the face of 36 violently-spinning cylinders. Katrina thumbed her trim tab to the left. The heavy synthetic aperture radar pod to her right fought against the engines’ torque and a tiny targeting pod on the opposite wing. The plane slowly dragged itself into left and right banks as she slewed her trim settings around, its asymmetrically-loaded airframe unwilling to maintain level flight.

She let out a frustrated sigh as she leaned back into her seat, accepting that she wouldn’t catch a break from going hands on with the aging beast. She kept a hand on the yoke as the plane again started straying off course. The craft carelessly dumped waste heat into the cockpit for pilot comfort, but she was layered under her flightsuit in case it - once again - lost an engine or two. Sweat beaded from her brow as a small fan zip-tied to the instrument panel cooled only the small region around her eyes that was exposed between her helmet and oxygen mask. For a brief moment, the notion of flying a drone with a modern autopilot and flight control system from an air conditioned trailer seemed appealing before she managed to purge the temptation from her head. 

A CRT screen was haphazardly bolted into the center of her instrument panel, linked to the underwing LANTIRN pod. Its cameras stayed glued to a small shack below the jungle canopy; the corrugated metal structure would be barely visible if not for the heat signatures pacing around it.

“Mage Seven, running in,” an Osean woman spoke over the radio.

“Cleared hot,” the forward air controller in Kat’s back seat replied.

She glanced outside, down towards the jungle. A tiny speck of grey dove down, only visible under the horizon from the sharp white contrails in its wake. The fighter arced back into the sky, and a bright explosion blossomed amidst the trees below. Her targeting pod’s display instantly turned white as it was overwhelmed by the blast, before easing back to a neutral grey with only a few scattered remnants of debris burning hot around the impact point.

“Shutter, Mage Seven,” the Osean pilot declared, “playtime is up, we’re winchester.”

“Copy, Mage; good shooting.”

The F-16 turned north as Kat maintained the Reporter’s gentle bank, trapped in the same orbit she had been in for the past several hours. She gazed wistfully at the Osean fighter as it departed into the horizon.

* * *

“This is a fucking disaster.”

Edouard Labarthe furiously smothered a cigarette in his ashtray before taking another from behind his khaki jacket’s breast. His hands uncontrollably fumbled with a lighter for a few moments until more smoke rose into the stale air of a cramped and cheaply-furnished conference room. “Three fighter wings. How do you let three _ entire _fighter wings go missing?”

A red-headed man, slightly younger and wearing the same uniform, sat across the table stammering. “I, uh-”

“One thousand airmen,” Labarthe continued, “fifty Mirages, ten C-160s, and all the remaining Wyvern prototypes. You didn’t think it was prudent to tell us when all these things just disappeared? And that's ignoring all the Yuke shit that somehow wound up in our backyard."

Erik Long grimaced, the color of his face gradually starting to match his goatee. He spoke slowly and sternly to maintain a veneer of composure, “I thought I could handle it internally.”

Labarthe took a long drag off his cigarette. “Well,” he said, his words bathed in sarcastic disdain, “the Air Force has a wonderful track record of that, doesn’t it?”

“I mean, it could have been worse,” a black Osean naval officer spoke. He wore his Maritime Defense Force service whites with Commander insignia on the shoulder boards, the whole uniform immaculately clean and pressed. “ISAF losses in the initial strikes were minimal, and Operation Katina was a huge success.” 

“I swear to Christ,” Erik muttered, “if I have to hear about that goddamned Raptor pilot one more time...”

Ryan Pearce briefly grinned before shifting to a more concerned tone. “But, there are still dozens of Mirages, Flankers, and Fulcrums unaccounted for, and we've got no idea how deep the defectors’ network ran within the air force.”

“Or how high up it went,” Labarthe interjected, side-eyeing Erik. “These rebellions have a curious tendency to start in the Air Force. They usually don’t even spread to the other services. Do you ever wonder why that is, Long?”

"I wonder why you didn't even start investigating their Yuktobanian and Estovakian backers before pinning this all on me," Erik retorted. "This was obviously the result of foreign meddling." 

Ryan leaned on the table towards Erik. "Hey man, it's a given that the Yukes will be fucking around in-country to get the old regime back. We have other people working on that. Your job is to make sure they don't have a permissive environment to achieve that goal." 

Labarthe forcefully exhaled, shooting smoke out of his nostrils. “Long, if you don’t pull your shit together, you’re going to be commanding an air force of Cessna Caravans and surplus gunships. Maybe they’ll mount Hellfires if you’re lucky.” Ryan chuckled; Labarthe shifted his glare over to a fourth man, who had up until now kept quiet and stared blankly at the others. "You should take some cues from Schattenmann, I don't know how he manages to keep the Navy so clean." 

Despite his Belkan surname, Glenn Schattenmann's epicanthic folds betrayed his Selatapuran background. "Well, uh," he meekly spoke up, "we're pretty far removed from politics. Physically, I mean. When we’re out at sea there’s not much on our minds other than doing our jobs.”

"Hey, I'm sure y’all don't mind if I light up too," Ryan said, producing a pack of menthol cigarettes. 

"I do if it's that shi-," an exasperated Labarthe muttered, interrupted by involuntary coughs as minty smoke drifted his way. "Uuuggh," he groaned. 

Ryan leaned back in his chair as he smoked. "I think what you need," he said, gesturing towards Erik with his cigarette, "is to get some impartial people involved.”

Erik’s head slumped into his palm. “Everyone here is tired of ISAF running things, and it’s not going to be much better after the IUN handoff. You already have complete control over our affairs, what the hell else could you want?”

“Hey, I’m on your side,” Ryan said with a twinge of indignancy. “The boys in Port Edwards would love to come in and dissolve your whole military. Leave you with some impotent ‘defense force’ instead. And it wouldn’t be in name only like ours. Harling’s burning a lot of political capital to make sure you get your country back in the end. You even got to keep your nukes!”

“He’s right,” Labarthe said, “there’s nothing the FCU would like more than to see us completely declawed. And they’d still find some justification to annex the eastern territories when we can’t stand up for ourselves.”

“Anyway, what I’m getting at is that you’ve gotta think more creatively,” Ryan replied before taking a drag on his cigarette. “Besides, what I’m proposing is barely a new idea. Y’all had army and air force foreign legions before the war. Why not stand up another one?”

“Hm,” Labarthe grunted. “It’s not an awful idea. We obviously can’t trust a significant portion of the air force. Having a reliable cadre would allow us to better deal with these threats without ISAF or IUN assistance.”

Erik raised an eyebrow. “That’s the sort of thing that would just push more of our people into outright rebellion.”

“You think?” Ryan asked. “‘Cause I’d say some foreign devils on your payroll is a hell of a lot better than some guys taking orders from Port Edwards.”

“I don’t know if the nationalists would see much of a distinction,” Erik replied with a slight shrug.

Labarthe folded his arms and leaned back, his ever-shortening cigarette dangling from his lips as he spoke. “We can keep it under wraps. As far as your average airman or junior officer knows, we just stood up another fighter wing out in the middle of nowhere. King Harold airbase is still vacant, that’s remote enough.”

“So remote that civilians can walk to it from the town ten klicks away,” Ryan replied. “Nah. I think Long’s home turf is a good candidate.”

“The Scintilles?” Labarthe asked.

“Yeah. You’ve got the ruins of Megalith just sitting there collecting dust. It’s got runways, a large hardened structure to hide the jets and materiel.” Labarthe, Long, and Schatterman stared skeptically at the rambling Osean. “And it’s on an island,” he continued, with great pride in his own ingenuity. “Nobody would have any idea what the hell we’re up to.”

“Somehow,” Labarthe replied following a few moments of dumbstruck silence, “I get the feeling that a few fishermen seeing jets flying out of an old doomsday weapon has the potential to be more conspicuous than reopening an old air base in the desert. And what would ISAF think about us bringing that thing back online?”

“Yeah, you’re right, but you’ve got to admit that it would be pretty cool.” Ryan turned to Erik. “So what do you think?”

Pausing to collect his thoughts for a few moments, Erik replied, “I feel like there are a lot of holes in this plan and you’re both just throwing it together without thinking about how I can do it or what the rest of the air force will think.”

“You had plenty of time to figure out a solution before this happened,” Labarthe said as he dropped the butt of his cigarette in his ashtray. “And, frankly, this is better than continuing to sit on your ass and hoping things get better. You have enough funding, make it happen.”

Edouard stood, followed by Ryan and Glenn, and made his way out the door of the conference room. Erik sat alone at the table and sighed, taking a Toughbook out of the satchel at his feet and pondering where to start.

* * *

Mike rubbed his sore eyes, stung by late evening sun as it peeked through the glass windows and barren interiors of ruined skyscrapers in the distance. He sat in the waiting room of a large, immaculate, and completely abandoned airport terminal. Its dated modernist decor was bathed in the dusk’s orange hues, frozen in a better decade when this country still had some naive hope for the future.

His C-17 sat outside; the tremendous aircraft looked at home on the ground, with its paunchy fuselage and drooping wings. Despite being unladen of the relief supplies they had delivered, the plane still laid heavily on its compressed undercarriage. A few other IUN cargo aircraft traversed the ramp, but he couldn’t make out any civilian planes. Nobody seemed terribly interested in visiting Erusea after the unsuccessful coup a few days ago, yet another reminder of the country’s persistent instability.

He held a paper cup of warm coffee in his hand, its strong, burnt aroma wafting to his nose. “I’ve gotta start taking go pills,” he muttered before taking a sip, dreading the long flight back to Osea.

“A little late for that, don’t you think?” Todd, his co-pilot, replied, standing beside him. “You’ve got what, a month left in your contract?”

“Something like that. I’m not really keeping track, it’ll just be a nice surprise when I’m off the flight schedule.”

“What do you think you’ll do? I’ll bet with all these hours you could go straight into something six-figures with the airlines.”

“Yeah,” Mike grumbled, “just what I want, more of this shit. Fly in a straight line for ten hours at a time, then do an ILS landing, all on autopilot.” He sipped his coffee. “You know, I kind of wish we were here last week. Maybe we could have had a dogfight against Free Erusea in our shitbox.”

Todd chuckled. “I don’t think that would have went well.”

“Hey, a maneuver kill is still a kill.” His voice dropped. “I dunno, I’ve been looking at the red air contractors, but all they want are fighter jocks.”

“Didn’t you qual in the Eagle out of UPT?”

Mike grunted. “Yeah, but that’s not good enough when you’re up against guys who spent their entire careers in fighters.”

“Yeah…” Todd mumbled. “Well, we should probably get the plane preflighted.” 

Mike took a larger sip, the coffee rapidly cooling as the cup emptied. “Go ahead, I’ll catch up with you.”

“Alright, see you out there,” Todd said as he slipped out a door onto the apron.

Mike walked opposite of the large windows looking outside, searching for somewhere to throw out his empty cup. Sighting a trash can at the base of a large pillar, he noticed a flyer taped above it as he approached.

“Seeking foreign pilots,” it read in Osean, with an incomprehensible mess of smaller Erusean text below. But what really caught his eye was the ugly clip art of fighter jets flanking the title. Apprehensive about the inept composition but curious about the inclusion of fighters, he stuffed the flyer in his pocket after tossing his cup in the garbage. He didn’t have anything better to do in the next couple of hours than to decipher it, he thought, as he walked outside to the plane.

* * *

_ One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it. _

– Albert Camus, _ Absurd Creation _

  
  



End file.
